Separation of Church and State has gone too far

Today, I saw a commercial that made my stomach curdle. A "life-long atheist" was claiming that America should go back to the value of secularism the
way that "our Founding Fathers wanted." No, this would be in error. Our Founding Fathers all very much held God dear and near. And, even in Abraham
Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address, God is alluded to.

There is secularism, and then, there is imposing your religion of atheism onto others. The only people who should be adamantly opposed to the
teachings of the Bible would be the aristocrats, the rich, and the elite. In other words, they have a reason to teach you this filthy propaganda
(because greed is anti-Christ, and if they say, "We should not have Christ in society because of secularism," then they get to be greedy).

When atheists and agnostics are putting words in the mouths of Our Founding Fathers, then they have taken this issue too far.

Actually most of the founding fathers spoke critically of religion and demanded the country be founded on secular principles in the law.

Their mention of God in speeches is regarding the authority to not remove your rights, based on unalienable rights.

It had nothing to do with upholding socially religious tenants or laws. Considering most of the founding fathers were also conservatives, they
believed in the right for you to be left alone and not have anybody else's beliefs be shoved down your throat.

The only people who should be adamantly opposed to the teachings of the Bible would be the aristocrats, the rich, and the elite.

You are showing your own religious bias.

Yes the Atheist movement is becoming a bit of circus, but the other religions have been that way for far longer.

When atheists and agnostics are putting words in the mouths of Our Founding Fathers, then they have taken this issue too far

When revisionist history tries to paint a picture of the founding fathers as anything but social & lawful secularists, we have a problem.

a reply to: iosolomon
Not to crush believes piss off dietys or whatever but alot of times they need total seperation look at the gay marrages thing going around every
religion is spittin on them honestly idc if bob and jim get married they can be as misserable as the rest of us another matter is if we didnt seperate
church and state he would still be killing people over the pettiest of crimes i have had the christian religion shoved down my throut my whole
childhood what some brainwashed bible thumper says is one thing but an educated citzen lets face it knows more about the world other than WWJD
apologies to any i have just offended

Christianity is all about greed. I don't know where you've been, but the Catholic church was the richest entity in the world for the longest time. Not
to mention it most certainly benefits the rich. Heck the bible teaches you to respect your place and respect authority. And yes our founding fathers
were probably secular. Just because god is mentioned doesn't mean they believed in it. Why else would Thomas Jefferson write about separation of
church and state?

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

—Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802

"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and
thousands of martyrs"

—Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Smith, 1822

"The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State."

—James Madison, 1819

"The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Government is government, and religion is religion. The two may coexist, but should never be mixed together. I don't even understand why they should.
In this country we have dozens of religions, why should one or a handful of denominations be allowed to influence everyone else through the law?

Besides, when a particular religion dictates the government, we end up with countries like Saudi Arabia.

A secular government actually PROTECTS people's religious freedoms and rights. It doesn't take away from them. With a secular government and
secular rule of law, no one religion gets a foothold over everyone else. Without it, different religions would be forcing their version of 'right'
on everyone else. It would be a blood bath. A secular rule of law doesn't impose atheism. A secular rule of law preserves the peace and allows
each individual to impose religious rule of law upon themselves alone, if they wish to.

Wondered how long this thread would take to pop up.
On my phone or I would link the many quotes from founding fathers that were all for the separation of church and state....

Separation, not elimination.

Religion has no business in government, nor should government have any business in religion.

But when people seek to eliminate use of the word God, or any speech in any venue that expresses faith they have indeed gone too far.

Funny, that atheists seem so obsessed with eliminating a God they believe DOES NOT exist.

Why so afraid of something that doesn't exist?

Why do you assume that we are afraid of the word god? When we ask for the word god to be removed from something it is usually in reference to
something that the government is involved in (the pledge, money, state buildings, etc). You LITERALLY just got done saying that separation of church
and state is necessary then you say this. Apparently you can't (or won't) understand our side of the argument and instead pretend like we fear the
word or something.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
I think most atheists don't really care what you believe, so long as you aren't trying to legislate your way into their lives by using God as your
excuse.

I have to agree. Every atheist I know or have ever met couldn't care less what others believe as long as it doesn't interfere with that atheists
way of life. It's when people start playing 'The God Card' and trying to impose their own version of morality onto others ... that's when
problems happen.

You employ a faith based logic and view issues from a perspective that guarantees you can't be objective.

Figuratively speaking, you can't walk in the shoes of others and thus you can't honor the freedom of others. You can't even pledge allegiance to
any collective constitution, including the US Constitution. At the end of it all, you think Atheism must be a religion --which it isn't.

You are qualified for a role in a theocratic framework like Iran or Pakistan. That's where your credibility ends.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
I think most atheists don't really care what you believe, so long as you aren't trying to legislate your way into their lives by using God as your
excuse.

I have to agree. Every atheist I know or have ever met couldn't care less what others believe as long as it doesn't interfere with that atheists
way of life. It's when people start playing 'The God Card' and trying to impose their own version of morality onto others ... that's when
problems happen.

Live and let live.

In all honesty, this should be the mentality of religious folk as well, which to your point, is why secular rule benefits everybody.

Yes apparently trying to make everything fair for all religions (by having the government not favoring one over the other) is attacking Christianity.
When it really isn't, it's just leveling the playing field that Christianity has clawed its way into making uneven in its favor. Then we get
arguments like we are trying to prevent them from praying or whatever, but it's not about not letting them pray, it's about the government requiring
prayer during a government event (like public schools). It's not like we are saying that Christians aren't allowed to pray anymore, but somehow that
is always attributed to us and then the first amendment is cited.

I have to disagree with you here. The Founding Fathers were absolutely not secularists across their lives. They believed very very strongly in a
specific religion NOT coming to rule in the United States and context for that is easy as they just came off the experience of a Religion literally
created by the state, FOR the state. (Church of England, formed with it's split for the needs of the King from the main Church).

However.. there are a few things which are important to note in this whole debate and sometimes, strike me as though history has forgotten to mention
some very key points about the men and system created in the beginning and held to, to the current day?

First...they weren't atheist or secular by any stretch in personal life.

Finally, we have something that comes every morning of business held in Congress and it's a daily reminder to accompany things like the 10
Commandments on prominent display within the Supreme Court. It's how the House and Senate open every day's business. This was the example
yesterday.

They have a different prayer to each house, each morning. I was reading back through the years last night, by chance on this topic, out of pure
curiosity after having noted they do this every day.

I believe we're a nation founded hard to the principle of no Religion created by or used to define life by the State. Yet, we are a nation very
deeply rooted in Religion, secondary to specific Faith or denomination. Those two things being the difference of freedom for/with Faith vs. Saudi
Arabian models of Theocracy, for example.

I never stated they were secularist in their personal lives, only in their governing lives. There is no proof to say that they wanted to rule by
religion, or maintain any kind of religious principle beyond the idea of "God Given Rights".

This is the core of the debate. When we talk about founding fathers, there are two kinds. The governing founding fathers and the personal founding
fathers.

They were the greatest examples of politicians because they understood that what you PERSONALLY believed, may not have been the best course of action
for the nation.

The progressive/socialist agenda requires there to be no religion except for the worship of the state. This is why you are seeing these lies
propagated throughout the progressive-compliant media - to kill religion.

The founding father wanted to ensure that religious institutions would never be allowed to take over government control, period. Look at middle
eastern countries and how their governments are Islam-centric with Sharia law, etc.,

The founding fathers were not against religion at all, but socialists will tell you that the founding fathers intended all sorts of things, if it
furthers their agenda.

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